Report: Removed Guards and Lockout Lapses behind Paper Mill Operator’s Death
- The Washington State Department of Labor & Industries’ FACE program released a report Nov. 2 on the March 2024 death of a 32-year-old machine operator who was crushed while clearing a jam in a unitizer, a machine that stacks cardboard boxes on a conveyor for shipping, at a paper mill.
- Working alone and unsupervised, he called supervisors for help four times in 45 minutes. While waiting, he entered the machine’s perimeter gate to hand-stack the boxes. Coworkers found him about 35 minutes after his last call, crushed under the stacker arms.
- Investigators found he entered without first de-energizing the machine, despite machine-specific lockout/tagout training, and that the employer didn’t enforce its lockout policies or properly supervise operators.
- Manufacturer-installed guards were permanently removed in 2017 when the perimeter gate was installed. Three job hazard assessments between 2016 and 2021 recommended interlocking gate doors, but the employer approved them only a few months before the death and started installing them two weeks before it.
Analysis Finds Worker Heat Complaints Spike above 90°F
- An analysis commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council and conducted by researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that Nevada workers’ heat complaints in almost every industry start climbing at about 90°F air temperature. The odds of a complaint more than tripled between 90°F and 100°F and were nearly 8 times higher at 105°F.
- Nearly half of the complaints came from indoor workplaces such as hotels, casinos, restaurants, retail and warehouses, and just over 80% came from Clark County.
- Nevada’s standard has no temperature trigger. It applies when conditions create a “reasonable likelihood that heat illness could occur” and requires a one-time written job hazard analysis. Business groups have held it up as a national model, and in September the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy asked the Labor Department to model federal rules on it.
- “We don’t think this should be the model going forward,” said co-author Barrak Alahmad. The Labor Department has indicated it intends to publish a revised heat standard proposal by the end of the year.
Responders Free Construction Worker Trapped to His Waist in Trench Collapse
- A construction worker was trapped up to his waist when soil collapsed in a trench at the base of a five-story apartment building in Woodside, Queens Nov. 2.
- Firefighters worked with a Con Edison vacuum truck to suction away dirt and debris, stabilized the excavation with two trench struts and used a rigged four-to-one system off a 24-foot ladder to hoist him out, FDNY Battalion Chief Ryan Traina said.
- A total of 162 New York Fire Department personnel from 28 fire units and 11 EMS units responded to the scene on 47th Street.
- He was taken to Elmhurst Hospital in moderate condition with minor injuries.